CVE-2017-12621

Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 8.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2017-09-28 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-611

Description

During Jelly (xml) file parsing with Apache Xerces, if a custom doctype entity is declared with a "SYSTEM" entity with a URL and that entity is used in the body of the Jelly file, during parser instantiation the parser will attempt to connect to said URL. This could lead to XML External Entity (XXE) attacks in Apache Commons Jelly before 1.0.1.

Affected products

Apache Software Foundation Apache Commons Jelly: before 1.0.1 — fixed in 1.0.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Apache Software Foundation Apache Commons Jelly 1.0.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/101052
http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1039444
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/JELLY-293
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/f1fc3f2c45264af44ce782d54b5908ac95f02bf7ad88bb57bfb04b73%40%3Cdev.commons.apache.org%3E
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/101052
http://www.securitytracker.com/id/1039444
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/JELLY-293
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/f1fc3f2c45264af44ce782d54b5908ac95f02bf7ad88bb57bfb04b73%40%3Cdev.commons.apache.org%3E

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